Upside down delight.

<p>Well. We got a lot of snow and then it got warm and windy and the it went a little upside down. That is, it turned a little stiff on top and remained soft below. This made for challenging travel conditions on sleds and lots of digging. Once we got off the sleds and started walking in sheltered terrain on west and north facing aspects things got a little nicer. The trail breaking was real but the skiing was actually decent. We stayed on supported slopes below 35 degrees away from terrain traps in order to give the new storm slab some time to bond to the firm surfaces and facets below it. That being said, we did not see any new avalanches which was somewhat surprising. I pulled multiple hand shears on the way up and found the storm slab to be 30-50cm thick and giving resistant planar results on old wind hammered/facetted surfaces. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Alpine slopes, Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Steep slopes, Sunny slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Rapid temperature rise to near zero degrees or wet surface snow.

Snow Conditions

Heavy, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Cloudy, Sunny, Warm.